As Joel Hodgson (Tom Servo's original creator) describes it, Servo's name
derives from a robot-shaped vending machine named the "Servotron" once
located in the Southdale Shopping Center in Edina, Minnesota; Servo's
snack-dispenser head pays homage to that origin.
The seeds of Servo's design can be found in elements of many other robots
that came before him, including
the hands, springy arms, and transparent dome of Robby, the Robot
from Forbidden Planet and B9 from Lost In Space
("You bubble-headed booby!"),
the hovering ability of Nomad from Star Trek,
the squat shape of the drones from Silent Running,
the cylindrical body and rotating head of R2-D2 from Star Wars,
and the chest-mounted gun turrets of certain Japanese tin robot toys.

The original Tom Servo was built from specific 'found objects',
thrift-store items from
Minneapolis in
the late 1980's: he has parts from
a snack dispenser, a barrel coin bank, the engine block from a toy car, a
Halloween candy bowl, toy trains, flashlights,
a C. More Bunz doll, and a ventriloquist's dummy. Many of these items are
now long out of production and quite rare.

KTMA: First, there
is Beeper

Crow, Joel, and Beeper, from the pilot tape

Crow and Servo (with popcorn in his head and a clothespin on his beak), from episode K01

Crow and Joel and Servo, from episode K04

Season 0 (1988-1989), Episodes K00-K21

The
Mystery Science Theater 3000 series
(MST3K) premieres on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1988, on
the small independent
Minneapolis UHF station KTMA-TV, channel 23.

All the bots are orignally designed by the creator of the show, Joel Hodgson, pulling an all-nighter
to build them the day before the
pilot tape is shot. The bots are made from thrift shop junk —
'found objects'. (Joel had
spent a year building probably fifty such bot puppets of various designs and sold them
in an upscale gift shop in Minneapolis called 'Props'.) Joel said of the bots, "They're kind of a collage, a bunch
of junk — plastic junk that looks good together."

Joel Hodgson plays the role of
'Joel Robinson' on MST3K.

Tom Servo began life as 'Beeper', so named because he
speaks only in annoying noises. Beeper only appeared in the pilot tape (never aired).

Beeper is made of various 'found objects':

Head is a plastic retail Spangler Dum Dum Pops dispenser

Eye is a vintage desk microphone, part of a L'eggs plastic pantyhose container, and some
black electrical tape

Servo's cummerbund is electrical tape in the pilot, black gaffer's tape in K01, red in K16,
black again in K21. Every time the tape changed, his barrel body seemed to lean a little further forward.

The same Crow and Servo seen in the host segments are used in the theater
segments in this season — Servo's head is transparent, and this makes
it very hard to see against the movie screen.

After the pilot, Beeper's head is replaced, and he becomes Tom Servo in his earliest form.

Changes:

Head is now a plastic gumball machine, designed in
Denmark in 1982, painted silver. This original Danish version of the
gumball machine is made of thick plastic, and has a slight overbite. The
hoop on the beak is left on, in contrast to Servo in later seasons where the
hoop is cut away.

Josh:I did think of him as being a bad morning D.J. with a giant ego and
delusions of being a chick magnet. I can't say it was any truly fleshed out
concept I had, I was just riffing in the office on it and threw in the
"Tom". Everyone laughed and the rest is "Myst-ory". I tried a few different
voices for Servo in shows before settling on the "Tom" Servo character.

Comedy Central: Servo
Turns Red

A blender and Servo, Season 1

Season 1 (1989-1990), Episodes 101-113

The show is picked up by the Comedy Channel (a cable channel that will
later merge with a competing channel and become 'Comedy Central'). The key minds behind MST3K form a new
company, 'Best Brains Inc.' (BBI).

This is a transitional year for Servo. He undergoes a number of changes at the hands of the Art Director, Trace Beaulieu:

Head is now a red plastic Carousel 'Executive Snack Dispenser', unpainted, with the hoop
cut
from the beak (this Chinese-made version of the gumball machine is built
from
thinner plastic,
and has a slight underbite)
(a)

Beak is painted white until episode 105, when it is painted silver

Hoverskirt is a 'Halloween Trick or Treat Boo Bowl' made in the late 1980's, painted with white
primer (b). Dimensions are:

11.25" across the mouth

4.875" across the base

5"
tall

½"-pipe foam insulation around the mouth of the bowl

Hoverskirt decorations are black vacuformed copies of a Tyco Turbo Train
— six of them, roughly placed
around the bowl (c)
(Vacuforming is a technique wherein a sheet of plastic is heated until
pliable, then stretch-formed over
the original object by the suction power of a vacuum.)

At this stage of Servo's development, his CPVC control rod runs straight
up through the body and is affixed to the inside back of the head. The control string for
the beak runs up and over the top edge of the CPVC tube. This means a lot of friction,
and a lot of broken strings.

There's now a 'theater' version of Servo's head
(made from KTMA Servo's head!), painted to be
non-transparent and
thus visible in silhouette against the film screen.

In later seasons this becomes an
entire Servo, all black, dedicated to theater use. There is also a theater
Crow, again black, with padded webbing to make its shadow more visible.

Servo is almost 23 inches tall, from the bottom of the hoverskirt
to the top cap of the globe.

This is Josh Weinstein's last season with the show, and with BBI. From Season 2
onward, Servo is puppeted and voiced by Kevin Murphy.

Arms are from a 'Mr. C. More Bunz' doll, with the attached springs, and the
bladders to make the arms extend
(later versions of Servo don't have the bladders)

Hands are now resin copies of the original doll hands, cast in a
flesh-coloured resin normally used to make hearing-aids, and then painted
white

Shoulders are now oriented more toward the sides of the barrel body

Servo has an extendable head, rarely used

Beak is now silver with flat black inside

Servo occasionally wears a fez as his gumball-cap

In episode 205, Servo gets a haircut; he wears this new head (another
Carousel snack dispenser, unpainted red) for several
episodes. Trace Beaulieu called this Servo's 'sport head'. Says Kevin Murphy, "There was no reason. It was pure
experimentation. Since we could fuck with Servo's head, we did."

This Servo (with the globe head) is 'Servo as we know him'. Only minor changes are made over
subsequent seasons.

Crow and Servo, Season 3

Beez helps Kevin Murphy thread a new head onto Servo (from Season 10)

Season 3 (1991-1992), Episodes 301-324

Until this season, BBI has only one production version of each bot
— the
originals. Concerned
with having at least two of each, during this season they have an outside party create
rubber molds of parts they have found impossible to locate (most notably Crow's shoulders,
and Servo's barrel and engine). With these molds they can (and do) cast as many
resin replicas as
needed.

In mid-season, Servo's head construction is modified. The head can no longer be extended – it's mounted on a lazy-susan turntable
bearing. The control rod now runs up into
the center of the head, joining a CPVC "Tee" connector hot-glued there. The control string for the beak runs from the beak up through an eye-screw
attached to the inside top of the head, and then down through a
hole cut in the cross bar of the
"Tee" and down through the hollow control rod without rubbing against it. This reduces
friction on the string, so it breaks less often.

New arm springs — shorter and bouncier

Arm-extending bladders are removed

Crow, Joel, and Servo, Season 4

Season 4 (1992-1993), Episodes 401-424

This season onward sees the use of a white lumikey method (instead of chromakey) in the theater, resulting in a considerable improvement in the
appearance of the silhouettes against the movies.

A second snack-dispenser cap is added to Servo's head under the globe, making the
globe detachable. The globe, having been cut away from the base of the head, is inverted and inserted in this new cap. The globe is held in place by friction and strong language, so it can be easily removed and replaced with special globes as required. The blooper reels show it frequently falls off with little
provocation.

Body is now a resin copy of the Money Lover Barrel

Engine is now a resin copy of the original plastic dragster engine

Arms are now resin copies of the original plastic "Mr. C. More Bunz"
arms. (Slightly more 'body' is attached to each arm than when original Mr.
Bunz arms were used, so the
arm mounts are somewhat more oval than they were previously; this
style of resin arm is used from now to the end of the series, including the
movie.)

As part of the promotional effort for the movie release, BBI creates replicas of Servo and Crow
and, in April of 1996, presents them to seven Planet Hollywood locations across the country.
The fan community is instrumental in providing some of the rarer parts
(Cooper XL7FG hockey masks for Crow, for instance).